Motion controllers are special-purpose computers utilized for controlling motors, drives, and other aspects of a mechatronic system. Designing a system where drive technology is utilized is difficult because of the complexities and unknowns involved in a motion system. For instance, what system load to motor inertia ratio is acceptable, how will compliance and/or backlash between the load and the motor impact performance and what performance can be expected. The difficulty in answering these and many other questions are related to the complex relationship between load, mechanism, servo motor, feedback, servo drive, controller and gain settings.
Typically, determining answers to these questions involved building a prototype machine and conducting empirical tests to collect data and determine the proper combinations of machinery and configuration parameters. Another possibility for a few designs included the use of general simulation software if the intended design fit within the constraints of the simulation software. Even for those designs meeting the narrow constraints of the general simulation software, the task was difficult because of the requirement of large amounts of design information that was unknown at design time.
The large expense and specific requirements of this type of system has created market pressure for a system that can simulate a servo driven mechatronic system for allowing the selection of components to build the system without the necessity of prototyping the machinery or knowing many of the system dynamics details. In another aspect, market pressure requires ease of use of the simulation system with regard to knowledge of servo driven systems. There is a need in the market for a system that is aware of currently available hardware and configurations and does not require the user of the system to provide all the intelligence of what hardware to select and what parameters to configure and their values.